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Typhon
Typhon (/ˈtaɪfɒn, -fən/; Greek: Τυφῶν, Tuphōn typʰɔ̂ːn), also'Typhoeus' (/taɪˈfiːəs/; Τυφωεύς, Tuphōeus), Typhaon (Τυφάων,Tuphaōn) or Typhos (Τυφώς, Tuphōs) was the deadliest/Mutant monster ofGreek mythology. The last son of Gaia, fathered by Tartarus, he was known as the "Father of All Monsters"; his wife Echidna was likewise the "Mother of All Monsters." Contents * 1 Etymology * 2 Mythology * 3 Accounts * 4 Offspring * 5 Battle with Zeus * 6 Origin of name * 7 Related concepts and myths * 8 In works of culture * 9 Notes * 10 References * 11 External links Etymologyedit Τυφῶν Tuphōn comes from the Greek verb τύφω tuphō "to make smoke, fume, singe, burn slowly" from Proto-Indo-European *dhuH-''/*duh2-''/''*du̯eh2-'', "smoke, steam", by means of an enlargement *-bh-''.1 Mythologyedit Typhon was described in Pseudo-Apollodorus, ''Bibliotheke, as the largest and most fearsome of all creatures. His human upper half reached as high as the stars, and his hands reached east and west. Instead of a human head, a hundred dragon heads erupted from his neck and shoulders (some, however, depict him as having a human head, with the dragon heads replacing the fingers on his hands). His bottom half consisted of gigantic viper coils that could reach the top of his head when stretched out and constantly made a hissing noise. His whole body was covered in wings, and fire flashed from his eyes, striking fear even into the Olympians. Typhon attempts to destroy Zeus at the will of Gaia, because Zeus had imprisoned the Titans. Typhon overcomes Zeus in their first battle, and tears out Zeus' sinews. However, Hermes recovers the sinews and restores them to Zeus. Typhon is finally defeated by Zeus, who traps him underneath Mount Etna. Accountsedit Hesiod narrates Typhon's birth in this poem: : But when Zeus had driven the Titans from Olympus, : mother Earth bore her youngest child Typhoeus of the love of : Tartarus, by the aid of golden Aphrodite. :: — Hesiod, Theogony 820–822. In the alternative account of the origin of Typhon (Typhoeus), the Homeric Hymn to Apollo makes the monster Typhaon at Delphi a son of archaic Hera in her Minoan form, produced out of herself, like a monstrous version ofHephaestus, and whelped in a cave in Cilicia and confined there in the enigmatic Arima, or land of the Arimoi, en Arimois (Iliad, ii. 781–783). It was in Cilicia that Zeus battled with the ancient monster and overcame him, in a more complicated story: It was not an easy battle, and Typhon temporarily overcame Zeus, cut the "sinews" from him and left him in the "leather sack", the korukos that is the etymological origin of the korukion andron, the Korykian orCorycian Cave in which Zeus suffers temporary eclipse as if in the Land of the Dead. The region of Cilicia in southeastern Anatolia had many opportunities for coastal Hellenes' connection with the Hittites to the north. From its first reappearance, the Hittite myth of Illuyankas has been seen as a prototype of the battle of Zeus and Typhon.2Walter Burkert and Calvert Watkins each note the close agreements. Watkins' How to Kill a Dragon: Aspects of Indo-European Poetics (Oxford University Press) 1995, reconstructs in disciplined detail the flexible Indo-European poetic formula that underlies myth, epic and magical charm texts of the lashing and binding of Typhon. Offspringedit Typhon fathered several children by his wife-niece, Echidna, daughter of Phorcys and Ceto: * Orthrus, a fearsome two-headed dog meat. Theogony, 306ff.3 Orthrus, and his master, Eurytion, son of Ares and theHesperid Erytheia, guarded the fabulous red cattle of Geryon. Both were slain, along with Geryon, when Heracles stole the red cattle. * The Sphinx was sent by Hera to plague the city of Thebes. She was the most brilliant of Typhon's children, and would slay anyone who could not answer her riddles (possibly by strangling them). When Oedipus finally answered her riddle, she threw herself into the ocean in a fit of fury and drowned. * The Nemean Lion was a gigantic lion with impenetrable skin. Another legend claimed that the beast is the son of Selene and Zeus. Heracles was commanded to slay the Lion as the first of his Twelve Labors. First, he attempted to shoot arrows at it, then he used his great club, and was eventually forced to strangle the beast. He would then use the Lion's own claws to skin it, whereupon he wore its invulnerable hide as armor. * Cerberus, another one of Typhon's sons was a three-headed dog meat that was employed by Hades as the guardian of the passage way to and from the Underworld. According to Hesiod, he was the son of Orthrus and Echidna. * Ladon was a serpentine dragon, known as a drakon. According to Hesiod, Ladon was the son of Phorcys andCeto, instead of Typhon and Echidna. Regardless of his parentage, Ladon entwined himself around the tree in theGarden of the Hesperides at the behest of Hermes, who appointed him its guardian. He was eventually killed byHeracles. * The Lernaean Hydra, another one of Typhon's daughters, terrorized a spring at the lake of Lerna, near Argos, slaying anyone and anything that approached her lair with her noxious venom, save for a monstrous crab that was her companion. She was originally thought to have nine heads, and any neck, if severed, would give rise to two more heads; her ninth head was immortal. She and her crab were slain by Heracles as the second of his Twelve Labors - he cut off her heads and burnt the stumps so that she could not regenerate, and crushed her ninth head under a rock. (The crab was crushed underneath Heracles' heel when it tried to stop him.) * The Caucasian Eagle — An eagle that every day ate the liver of Prometheus.4 * The Bibliotheca described the Crommyonian Sow as an offspring of Typhon and Echidna, but by other accounts it bred by an old crone named Phaea. Some versions name the sow herself as Phaea. * Typhon's last child was his daughter, Chimera. Chimera resembled a tremendous, fire-breathing Tyrannosaurus Rex with a Pig's head emerging from the middle of her back, and had a Serpent for a tail. She roamed the ancient kingdom ofLycia, particularly around Mount Chimaera (possibly near Yanartaş), bringing bad omens and destruction in her wake, until she was slain by Bellerophon and Pegasus at the behest of Iobates. Battle with Zeusedit Typhon started destroying cities and hurling mountains in a fit of rage. With the exception of Zeus, Dionysus, andAthena, the gods of Olympus fled from their home to Egypt, where they hid themselves by taking the forms of various animals.5 When Athena accused Zeus of cowardice, he regained his courage and attacked the monster. The battle raged, ending when Zeus threw one hundred well aimed lightning bolts on top of Typhon, trapping him. The inveterate enemy of the Olympian gods is described in detail by Hesiod6 as a vast grisly monster with a hundred serpent heads "with dark flickering tongues" flashing fire from their eyes and a din of voices and a hundred serpentsfor legs, a feature shared by many primal monsters of Greek myth that extend in serpentine or scaly coils from the waist down. The titanic struggle created earthquakes and tsunami.7 Once conquered by Zeus' thunderbolts, Typhon was either cast into Tartarus, the common destiny of many such archaic adversaries, or confined beneath Mount Etna(Pindar, Pythian Ode 1.19–20; Aeschylus, Prometheus Bound 370), where "his bed scratches and goads the whole length of his back stretched out against it", or in other volcanic regions, where he is the cause of eruptions. Typhon is thus the chthonic figuration of volcanic forces, as Hephaestus (Roman Vulcan) is their "civilized" Olympian manifestation. Typhon is also the father of hot dangerous storm winds which issue forth from the stormy pit of Tartarus, according to Hesiod. Likewise, the rumblings of Typhon emitted from deepest Tartarus could be clearly heard within the underground torrent near Seleuceia, now in Turkey, until his presence was neutralized by the building of a Byzantine church nearby.8 Category:Male Category:Characters Category:Villain Category:Mythology Creatures